


find what you love and let it kill you

by ChevreJaune



Series: death is your gift, said the mystic to the warrior [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Master of Death, The Deathly Hallows
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-19
Updated: 2017-04-19
Packaged: 2018-10-21 00:29:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,586
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10673928
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChevreJaune/pseuds/ChevreJaune
Summary: Despite his parents' wishes and plans, Harry James Potter grows up knowing very little about love. That doesn't mean he doesn't want to put his faith in something.He’s very practical about the whole thing. Father Christmas is a story for children that Harry never believed in. He isn’t going to start now – not with jolly old Saint-Nick, not with the Easter Bunny, not with the Tooth Fairy. He’s also holding out on any human-loving omniscient deity. The thought of someone who ought to love him but couldn’t be bothered tastes like ash on his tongue: he will not dwell on it.The whole thing leaves him in a bit of a pickle. That is, until Gracie dies.(or, Harry becomes Death's champion before becoming its master.)





	find what you love and let it kill you

* * *

 

Harry Potter is ten months old, and his family is gathered around his crib.

For the occasion, his mother decorates the windows with Muggle fairies and paper lanterns. She tries animating some of the figurines: Harry tries eating them. His fist tightens over the one he’s caught mid-flight – and oh, James crows, foretelling a splendid career as a Seeker and already planning how they’d need to buy him a baby broom for his upcoming birthday – and, when Lily wrestles the toy away from her son, Harry cries fat, heart-wrenching tears.

Having her baby crying never got easier. Parenting was, clearly, a job and a half. Lily tries to communicate this with her eyes with Sirius, but Sirius is too busy throwing her son into the air with gleeful cries. She’d stop him, but… well. Harry seems to like it; higher, higher comes out of his tiny little mouth with the same enthusiasm his future godfather exhibits. Only, it comes out more like, ‘hi’a, hi’a pa’foo!’. It’s completely adorable and Lily won’t be the killjoy mum. Not this early in the game. James would only be too happy to snatch up the title of ‘cool parent’ and he’d never let it go, the twat.

Finally, she hears the floo come to life and the murmurs of voice floating up to the nursery. Remus was only a half an hour late. At least he came, Lily thinks, the stray thought bringing to mind how rarely they saw their old friend anymore. In those dangerous times, 'too busy for social calls' became their default mode.

Petunia isn’t there, though, and she hadn’t answered a single call or letter since Lily had been informed she had a nephew, a boy called Dudley. Petunia isn’t living through a war: the radio silence is less excusable, and the voluntary distance hurts more.

Soon, the room is filled with chatter – Sirius obviously happy to see his fellow Marauders. It’s too bad Peter couldn’t make it: it had been too long since the four of them had gotten caught up in some mischief. As much as Lily had disliked waking up with a two feet long nose covered with warts, some levity wouldn't be unwelcomed.

‘Impromptu party, Lils?’ Alice asks from her seat in the corner as the room starts to fill out. Frank is holding their son, Neville, and Lily can see the same tense lines in his shoulders as she sees in James – as she probably bears herself. They are all friends here, but prophecies are bad business.

‘Lily? Partying? That killjoy?’ Lily swats Marlene as her old friend squirms away from Sirius’ grabby hands. ‘Don’t we all wish.’

‘There are a lot of us here,’ Remus says mildly, though the hint of a question lifts his tone.

‘We’re overthrowing the Order!’

Sometimes, Lily dreams she could give James a good whack so that all the nonsense spurting through his head could be expelled from his nose. Literally; one moment, she would dream of ice cream trucks pulled by dragons and unicorns, the next, James appears in her dreamscape and ruins the fun so completely that she throws something heavy at him. Like a piano or an anvil. It usually makes fireworks go off, and a coloured smoke or liquid oozes out of him, and he just… becomes more normal after it’s gone.

It’s a frequent dream, but Lily doesn’t have the time to flash back to it now. She inhales, deeply. ‘It’s a party. Kind of. It’s about Harry’s godfather and godmother.’

There is silence. And then, ‘Sirius is meant to be Harry’s godfather, yes?’

Of course it’s Remus who asks. Lily has no idea what that boy – man – is thinking, not when his voice is so mild and his expression so polite, but she knows it can’t be good. She’s heard the rumors, the suspicions, and she has barely had the time to visit headquarter since Harry’s birth. Of course Remus heard them too. Of course he would wonder if, maybe, he’s meant to be bonded to their son like one would leash a dog, out of fear. Or maybe he’s not that stupid. Maybe what he’s thinking is another type of idiotic idea like _they need a spare because we all might die_.

On the other side of the room, Marlene and Alice just look interested. _Good_ , Lily thinks. Her friends were always smarter than James’ hooligan gang.

A look at her husband tells her James isn’t even aware of his friend’s polite and mild turmoil.

She sighs. ‘Unfortunately, Sirius needs to be Harry’s godfather.’ She pinches her lips and ignores the man’s sputtering. ‘There was a bet. And there was a lot of blackmail.’

‘Hey there, missy,’ Sirius yelps, ‘you’re the one who made that bet! Your exact words were, “Sure, Sirius, if I ever fall for that arrogant prat, you can have our firstborn.” Count yourself lucky that I generously settled for being his godfather!’

‘As you can see,’ Lily says drily.

James is giving her this look. It’s bewildered, all wide eyes and a lot of ‘are you shitting me’, and it fits perfectly with his mess of a hairstyle. ‘Er… So, when you argued for weeks about whether we should let Padfoot be godfather, you…  that wasn’t necessary?’

Sirius is giving her puppy dog eyes. The other occupants of the room are courteous enough not to make any remarks, although Lily can swear she hears ‘make up sex’ pronounced by a suspiciously Marlene-like voice. She clears her throat. ‘Let’s focus on Harry, everyone?’

Harry gurgles happily at the mention of his name. Neville, from the other side of the room, peeks out of his blankets, eyes bright and curious.

‘We wondered if the lot of you would like to be Harry’s fairy godmothers,’ James finally says with a wide shit-eating grin.

‘The lot of us?’ Alice asks, voice soft and lilting.

‘Strength in numbers,’ Lily whispers. ‘If I can help it, I want that my son never doubts that he is loved, not for one second. And I trust all of you with my life – and so I trust you with my son.’

‘And so we brought you all here, like we’d bring a small army,’ James puts in, and there is humour in his comment but mostly there is love, ‘Together we shall conquer!’

It’s not James’ best speech, but they all accept Lily’s unorthodox proposition. In turn, Lily is made Neville’s godmother and the rest of them are made his fairy godfathers. That way, the boys might have to share, but at least they will never run out of parental support, no matter what happens.

Magic accepts the numerous bonds sworn that day. Vines of soft golden light wrap themselves around each wrist, connecting all wand-users to their new charges. The web formed is wondrously simple. It’s perfect. It looks exactly the way it feels: warm and right.

Seeing it, Lily can truly believe, for the first time since Albus relayed the prophecy, that her son will be alright. At the very least, he will be loved.

 

~*~

 

 

Harry Potter is four years old, and his mum – his dead mother whose name he doesn’t know – was wrong, wrong, wrong. The boy doesn’t know it: he knows very little, and the little he knows is mined with lies. The only few things he knows for sure are that he’s a boy, Aunt Petunia is his mum’s sister and Uncle Vernon is her husband. Their son Dudley is his cousin, and none of them ever asked to have him. Nobody would ask for something like him darkening their doorstep: the eggs he cooks for them are chewy and bland, and he can’t ever pull the weeds properly.

He does not know his name, he does not know his age. He barely knows about the way he looks: the world is blurry around him and he never gets a lot of time in the bathroom. He was also forbidden from using the stool Dudley uses to brush his teeth. Mirrors aren’t a commodity Harry is used to. He simply nods and accepts that he is an ugly little runt, just like his parents were before him.

 

 

~*~

 

Harry Potter is six when he learns he’s Harry Potter. Apparently, he also has a birthday. The teacher says it’s on the 31st of July, a midsummer baby. The date is stupid: it won’t do him any good. The children who have their birthdays on schooldays get a surprise, a card or a muffin. Harry won’t be getting any of that. He also knows better than to mention it to the Dursleys.

 

 

~*~

 

 

At age seven and a half, Harry learns about religion. It comes about in a roundabout way, in the form of another boy who also does not have a lunch, day after day. The boy is two years older than him, but just one grade higher. His name is Halim, which doesn’t sound like a ‘normal’ name to their schoolmates, but Halim bears it proudly and tells Harry it means _tolerance_. Harry giggles and says, _I wish there was more Halim at this school then_.

He doesn’t understand a lot about why Halim would willingly go without food while the sun is up for a whole month. Neither does he understand much about what the other boy tells him about his beliefs, his family, his home life, his culture. But Halim laughed with him when he made a silly joke. It’s the closest thing to a friend Harry has ever had. It takes him a while to see that, while Halim is kind and patient, Harry _isn’t_ his friend. Harry who cannot play sports very well and who doesn’t mix with others is more like a puppy, latching onto any sign of affection thrown his way. Harry’s no good for much – he does not like to talk about himself, he does not know how to play games, and he has a firm belief that if there is a god, that god must be very unkind.

He can tell Halim still sorts of likes him, but more in a ‘entertain the little cousins on their visit’ or a ‘train your patience’ way. In truth, it’s more than enough for Harry. Even if Harry does not agree with all the faith in goodness Halim holds, he is willing to listen to the stories with an open mind. It’s only because he has become trained in noticing small details – important details – that he sees his lack of enthusiasm hurts his friend’s feelings. He honestly never meant to. Once he notices that, he notices everything else.

Being on friendly terms with Harry Potter is a burden from the moment Dudley or Piers catch wind of it. Nobody has dared to – especially since Harry had ended up on the roof. That boy is trouble, is what the teachers and the parents say. Harry knows better than to drag someone into the mess of Harry-hunting and sharp whispers… especially when it looks like the person would rather play handball or talk about God with someone who understands it more. Someone who doesn’t say things like ‘ _My mum was a whore and my dad was a drunk and they died because God couldn’t stand having them mixing in with the good people down here.’_

(Harry hates the look Halim gives him, the incredulous ‘What kind of monster are you’ stare, but a part of him jumps for joy that someone else would defend his dead parents, someone else thinks that the bile spilling out of aunt Petunia’s mouth is not okay)

Sadly, Halim seems to think he cannot just give up on Harry. The boy is nine, but he already possesses a wealth of love like layers and endless patience to bestow. He won’t wash his hands of Harry, not when he thinks maybe Harry could use his help. Not when he could show Harry more about how wonderful the Earth God created is.

And truly, when he is stuck in his cupboard for hours at a time, Harry is grateful for it. He even tries praying a few times, but he just feels out of place. Like his skin is itchy and too tight. So he does the next best thing: the next time he catches himself falling into step with Halim, tagging along at lunchtime, he stops himself and goes do something else.

Halim never stops greeting him in the hallways, but he never tries to initiate longer encounters when they cross. Unfailingly polite and kind: it is the epitome of the British stereotype. Harry can’t help but snicker at the irony because he’s heard uncle Vernon complaining about Halim’s family, about how those people had no idea about the values and customs of Britain and refused to integrate.

As he lets himself fall out of Halim’s sphere of gravitation and be replaced by livelier kids, Harry can’t help but think Halm integrates just fine.

 

 

~*~

 

 

Half a year later, on his eighth birthday, Harry Potter regrows all his hair in a night and decides that, even if he can’t believe in an all-loving God, he’s gonna believe in something. Probably not guardian angels – an angel might have saved him from humiliation and Harry hunting, but he refuses to think such a magnificent being would have let him feel so abandoned all the time. Surely an angel, even an invisible angel, could have managed to send a warm gust of love his way. One single sign of love.

He’s very practical about the whole thing. Father Christmas is a story for children that Harry never believed in. He isn’t going to start now – not with jolly old Saint-Nick, not with the Easter Bunny, not with the Tooth Fairy. He’s also holding out on any human-loving omniscient deity. The thought of someone who ought to love him but couldn’t be bothered tastes like ash on his tongue: he will not dwell on it.

The whole thing leaves him in a bit of a pickle. That is, until Gracie dies.

‘Everything dies, Harry dear,’ Mrs. Figg says as she serves him tea, the funeral he organized for her deceased cat just over, ‘we need not despair about it. What lives must die. Death is just a part of life. Just like it is a part of life that Cauliflower will go in heat and rub herself on all of my furniture in the next week or so.’

Harry sips his tea delicately, trying to fill his nostril with the aroma of black tea and citrus instead of the cloying cabbage smell coming off the curtains and the couches. ‘It’s not fair,’ he mumbles, ‘Gracie was the youngest of the litter.’

‘Death isn’t fair,’ Mrs. Figg says not unkindly, ‘it just is.’

Harry blinks. ‘That’s… nice, Mrs. Figg.’

‘Yes, I suppose it is. Biscuit, my dear?’

And with that, Harry has found some entity to place his faith in.

There is no sign that death was sentient. Stories that made Death into a character had him caring little for humanity or its quirks. Harry doesn’t mind any of that. So what if Death has a scythe or not and so what if Death is standoffish and cold? The important thing is that death exists, so Death is a thing. Important. Meaningful. Yeah, Harry could pursue that logic and say that if death exists and so might a bringer of death, then the existence of life could preclude a giver of life. The God Halim likes so much. But it isn’t life Harry has a problem with, it’s the _love_.

Death exists without the moralities and the feelings. In the comfort of his cupboard, that makes much more sense to a young Harry Potter. So in the evening, after having washed the dishes and gotten the scraps to eat, Harry retreats to his tiny space in the dark without being told twice. There, he joins his hands and asks Death, _please let my parents be together and well_.

 

 

~*~

 

 

When Harry turns eleven, he learns that he is The Harry Potter. Apparently, there is an entire world of magical beings out there to whom being ‘Harry Potter’ means something completely different than what it means to him. The whole thing feels like putting on someone else’s skin, and that’s how Harry realizes that, whoever it is these people think they love, that person does not exist.

He also knows it doesn’t matter, because every witch and wizard expects him to impersonate that famous Boy-Who-Lived. The job seems to have very few perks. Harry would have said it looks like a completely thankless job… if it wasn’t for the fact that every wand-waving wizard he’s met so far has approached him to thank him.

‘The Wizarding World is strange, Hedwig,’ Harry says with a touch of finality. From her perch, his owl hoots in agreement. Honestly, Harry is not sure how well he will adapt. He is still reeling from the sudden spacious feeling he’s had ever since he traded the cupboard under the stairs for Dudley’s second room.

 _I hear we’ve met quite closely when I was still a baby_ , he tells Death quietly before falling asleep _. Did you just forget me there? S’very insulting. Hey, did you know they call me the Boy-who-Lived? That’s funny, right? Heh…_

 

 

~*~

 

As begins his third year, so begins divination class with Professor Trelawney. The woman keeps predicting his death in increasingly absurd ways and, no matter how Professor McGonagall assures them she does it every year, Harry can’t help but wonder if she’s doing it on purpose with him, because she sensed a special connection there. After all, at age thirteen, Harry Potter has been ‘praying’ to Death for years. That is to say: he mercilessly indulged in rambles about his life, his thoughts, his secrets. For all intents and purposes, Death had become Harry Potter’s imaginary friend. Which was a strange concept – after all, death was hardly imaginary. Also, considering Harry had come quite close to death in the last two years, perhaps the lack of a friendly sign of recognition meant that ‘friends’ would have been presumptuous of him to claim.

Not that he really wanted Death to show up and start reaping. Still.

Hermione is turning tarot cards, interpreting them with textbook accuracy as she goes. Harry has to say, maybe it has to do with his friend’s lack of imagination, but his future looks pretty bleak.

Trelawney is hovering behind her, obviously waiting for something. She doesn’t have to wait long.

‘Oh! Death is in your cards! My poor, poor boy!’

‘Death stands for change, Harry,’ Hermione interrupts, gritting her teeth. ‘Renewal of sorts.’

‘Like a phoenix,’ Harry whispers, gaining a smile from Hermione.

‘A muggle interpretation,’ Trelawney dismisses, ‘for people who cannot read omens. If we are to read our futures, we mustn’t ignore the great signs of distress simply for the sake of our comforts!’

‘It’s about symbolism,’ hisses Hermione. Harry can see her hair frizzing on the spot, the one bad omen Trelawney steadfastly ignores.

Instead, Trelawney keeps watching Harry with round eyes. She looks like a maniac. ‘Dear girl, you must expand your mind if you are to expand your sight. Divination is much more than you make it out to be: you see two flat dimensions, whereas I see a whole spectrum of layers and levels. Trust me when I say, our Harry is deeply entangled within Death’s path.’

 **Parvati** and Lavender are already whispering about it furiously, heads bent together. Hermione has her normal Hermione response: a huff and an eye roll. Really, if it wasn’t for the weird soothing incent, Harry thinks she would have stormed out of the classroom weeks ago.

His mates, Ron, Neville and Seamus, they just shrug and give him sympathetic smiles.

‘I s’pose I would be,’ says Harry simply. Before the class is over, he pockets Death’s card.

There’s just something about it that calls to him.

 

 

 

As it turns out, Dementors and deadly omens aside, third year is also very special. It’s the year where Remus and Sirius reappear. They are respectively a protector and a threat, up to the very end of the semester. Then, Sirius proves his innocence and Remus transforms into a werewolf and, in the great mess that ensues, their roles are switched under the full moon.

It isn’t quite Lily had wanted. Remus makes some overtures through the years – stories through tea, extracurricular help, the sort of caring Hagrid had been doing since he’s met the eleven years old Harry – and Sirius offers to take Harry but can’t in the end. Still. Their presence is enough to gift Neville with a bit more confidence and Harry with a strong corporal Patronus. Both men are gone before the semester is over, but Prongs stays, just an incantation away.

It’s enough.

 

 

~*~

 

 

Fourth year comes and goes and Cedric dies.

It’s Harry's fault. His friends meant well when they tried to discourage the growing guilt, but the young wizard knows better. Cedric grabbed the cup because Harry insisted. He has nightmares the whole summer. The ones with green light flashing are disturbingly familiar: someone standing next to him or in front of him, struck down because Voldemort wished it so. Struck down on the way to Harry. Whenever Cedric’s corpse haunts his dreams, Harry wakes up agitated and sweaty. He doesn’t mind the memories of being tied up and bled; of being let down and tortured. Those he can deal with – whenever they appear, so do the specters of his parents, the same as they had in the graveyard. Intangible but powerful, woven through a phoenix song.

In the worst dreams, he hears Amos Diggory’s heartbroken howls, sees him bending over his son’s cold and battered body. He doesn’t even have to dream of the Triwizard Tournament for Amos’ cries to pierce through whatever oneiric construction he has. The loud misery of Cedric’s father is awful. It tells of love, of family. Of being left behind.

Harry screams himself hoarse every time. It doesn’t please the Dursleys.

 

 

~*~

 

 

Dudley is attacked after they both turn fifteen, and the Dursleys are furious. Thick in the air thrums the knowledge of ‘we were right, we told you so, you were always going to bring trouble to our perfect household’. From their points of view, it has to be true: Dudley had the time to collect a fall in a snake’s pit, a pig’s curly tail, a gigantic tongue to choke upon, a close encounter with Dementors. None of it could have happened without Harry there. It makes Harry uneasy, that realization that they had no reason to like magic, but it’s not sufficient for him to apologize. He’s too angry still and they are accusing him of the wrong things anyway.

He sees Thestrals that year. They’re new. Along with the sudden presence of Luna, they manage to shift something within him.

‘Say, what do you know about Death?’ he asks Luna sometime after he catches her perusing the fifth floor corridor with a weird beeping machine.

She doesn’t even blink at him. Her stare is as curious watching him as watching the dusty corners of the castle. ‘Ah. You’re rather close to Death, aren’t you?’

‘What do you mean, Luna?’ asks Harry tightly.

‘Because of the cloak,’ she says with a smile, then pauses and refocuses. ‘No, it’s more than that for you, isn’t it, Harry?’

He swallows and nods.

‘Death’s favour is not meant to curse, Harry. Perhaps you and daddy should talk. You would make great material for the October edition of the Quibbler.’

‘Er… thanks,’ he says, because what else can he say?

 

 

 

Umbridge is a rotten toad and Dumbledore is avoiding every attempt Harry’s made to talk to him. Luckily, there’s the D.A. They’re finally getting the Patronus charm and Harry pulls strength from that. Prongs walks around the room, stopping by Ron’s terrier and Hermione’s otter the longest, but keeping his rounds. Recognizing others. _Let the toad try and take this away_ , he thought. The combined light of the many Patroni makes Harry giddy.

Happiness pulsed stronger when shared, or so it seemed.

 

 

 

Sirius dies at the end of the year – there’s always something at the end of the year, like clockwork – and Dumbledore’s words are meant to be soothing, but they feel like ‘I told you so’. There is no body to bury but nobody except Harry seems to contemplate what it could mean. That Sirius could be alive still, taken somewhere, thrown like in a wormhole. Hermione gives him these crazy pitying eyes instead of declaring she’ll be scouring the library for more information on the Veil. Even Luna shakes her head and gives him her version of sympathies. They’re better than everything the others have managed. But it’s just… Sirius body wasn’t anywhere. He can hear voices beyond – and so can Luna, for that matter! Maybe there’s a way. Maybe he could make up for his idiotic rash of the moment mistake. Cedric was dead and gone but Sirius… Maybe Sirius he could still help.

He ignores any and all soft gaze turned his direction from then on.

 

~*~

 

Harry is sixteen and this summer, his friends have not abandoned him. Hermione keeps a steady stream of letters going. In one particularly long letter about the upcoming NEWTS, she slipped a pamphlet about the Veil, its origins and history. The note to it sounds apologetic, like she doesn’t want to pick at his wounds but knows he might be getting ridiculous. It’s exactly what he expects from a parent or from Dumbledore, this ‘I don’t want to, but Harry I need to’ followed closely by the implied, ‘for your own good’. The attitude sickens him but, alright, he gets it. He messed up good and proper. Now everybody is concerned. Yeah, okay.

Ron also writes, and so does Ginny. Neither have much of substance to say. Nothing in their letters indicates they would be ready to welcome the more troubling thoughts that consume him. It’s fair enough – they have to deal with his temper and mercurial moods during the year. He won’t force it on them during the summer holidays. Especially not when he still feels guilty about guiding them into a trap.

Instead, he confides in Hedwig. She bears it well: she’s had years of practice at it.

‘I just wonder about the voices,’ he tells Hedwig, who is busy pecking at his hair. ‘Voices of the dead? Of the reapers? Cries and whispers of the ones left behind?’

Hedwig tilts her head at him. Obviously she doesn’t know.

‘Could you find Sirius now?’ he asks her, because he has to.

Her responding hoot is decidedly sad.

Harry sags.

 

 

A week later, Harry wakes up from yet another dream of Sirius falling, and he struggles with his breathing. Hedwig is watching him, her beak still piercing through a forest mouse.

‘Could you… could you find death for me?’

She answers with a sharp hoot. A warning. Harry should be careful what he’s asking, she seems to say.

‘No, I mean… Like, if I wanted to send a letter to Death. Could you deliver it, you think?’

 _Does Death exist as something more than a void_ , he wants to blurt out and ask. He cannot stand the nothingness left behind. Death does not have to make sense, sure, but it has to be something?

He grabs the latest letter he had been writing, erases the ‘Ron’ part at the beginning and replaces it with ‘Death’. He adds a post-scriptum, ‘Please don’t keep my owl even though she’s amazing’. The tarot card depicting Death is slipped into the envelope as well; Harry isn’t sure if it’s meant to be a joke or a calling card, but he’s sending it anyway.

Maybe he’s still half-asleep. His brain sure feels foggy enough.

Hedwig is still staring that unrelenting stare of hers as he finishes and offers her the letter.

‘This is for Death. Could you deliver it, love?’

After a minute, she swoops down and grabs it from his hand and in a flash of white she is gone, leaving Harry with the bloody carcass of her nighttime snack.

 

 

He gets a reply two weeks after Hedwig accepted the challenge. The content of the letter is short, incredibly so. It still manages to convey dry amusement. Harry smiles, heart unburdened.

He eyes Hedwig, her dignified posture, even as her feathers are a bit of a mess. ‘Would you be up for making the trip again?’

She glares at him.

Obviously, Harry Potter is not about to become Death’s pen-pal.

 

 

~*~

 

 

Dumbledore falls from the Astronomy tower a year after he tells Harry about the prophecy. Just as steadily as he had avoided the boy in his fifth year, Dumbledore had invited Harry over for tea and pensieve memories in his sixth. Going over Tom Riddle’s life, Harry wonders about his own. Were someone to collect memories of him, what sort of story would they tell? Dumbledore is set on showing him how Tom Riddle was doomed from the start, a hellion with a cold black heart from his childhood years… and yet Harry sees something different. That could have been him and he could have been Tom. They had close enough formative years. He gets why Tom went the way he went, even if it was the wrong way. Just the same, Harry is still not sure how he managed not to follow that path. He has no idea why he made the choices he did, but he knows they were the right ones. Not the best decisions by any measure… but right choices still. 

But Dumbledore falls and Harry knows there can be no more easy choices on his road. With his last protector gone, Harry will be left with nothing but hard choices. He can only hope to get them right.

 

 

~*~

 

 Harry Potter spends most of his seventeenth year on the run, wanted by the state. Undesirable Number One becomes his moniker. It’s not so bad: with all the trouble he has given Voldemort and his bootlickers through the years, he certainly feels like he’s earned that one.  Hedwig is dead and he’s chasing after bits of his archenemy’s soul before he can take on the main part of the bastard.

Between Ron leaving and his visions, camping in the wild sucks. Thankfully enough, they aren’t Muggles and their tent is more a transportable house than a bit of cloth thrown over sticks. Still – his mood is increasingly awful and the locket is mocking them.

His focus on the tales of Beedle the Bard and the Deathly Hallows upsets Hermione.

‘How can you not believe in Death?’ Harry asks one day, throwing his hands in the air.

Hermione crosses her arms and huffs. ‘Of course I believe in the concept of death! It doesn’t mean I believe in an anthropomorphic construct that humans created to assuage their fear of the unknown!’

He stops himself before he tells her about the letter. He does not need Hermione doubting his sanity even more, nor does he need her to throw around a metric ton of hypothesises on the subject of who could have pranked him by pretending to be a Reaper.

The whole thing reminds him of her general exasperation in the face of Luna Lovegood just as much as it reminds him of her dismissing Malfoy as a threat and sending him grieving glances when he talked of the Veil. All in all, Harry is not a happy camper, even less so when Xenophilius Lovegood sells him out to Snatchers. The fact that he sort of gets it doesn’t mean he has to like it.

 

That year, Death surrounds him and clings to his friends. Harry does not pray anymore. There is nothing spiritual about his quest, even if it is literally a search for souls. No: it’s all physical, tired bodies dredging themselves up in the morning, getting papercuts from flipping through Hermione’s portable library, cramps from minimal food, sore muscles and lower back pains. It’s cold sweat from learning about Muggleborns being taken, it’s fear from all the ‘what if’ and ‘what could happen’, it’s a warm hopeful feeling from watching Ginny’s dot on the Marauder Map. Harry is way over his head with this but, whenever he has something on his mind, he feels like he owes it to Hermione first. Death is not evil, but it is an unwelcome presence in his world at the moment, and he does not want to give it space.

There are numerous storms through the winter months. Harry’s socks get damp and cold because no charm sticks on his feet – the magic falls apart whenever he takes a few steps. He wears Mrs. Weasley’s sweaters day in and day out and pretends it’s enough to combat the chill seeping through.

Harry Potter has never hated Voldemort with as much continued dedication as he does sitting in the smelly tent with his soggy socks and a heartbroken Hermione. When they make their final stand, Harry might even forgo the spells and just punch that evil git in his nonexistent nose.

The balance feels off with one of them gone. They both miss Ron terribly, though in different ways. Harry misses his friend and Hermione, well…

He’s pretty sure she cannot wait for a chance to hex the prat.

 

He is seventeen and he sees his friends and comrades falling under enemy spells and, in a few cases, friendly fire. They round up the bodies and Harry makes himself see them. The blood, the unnatural angles of some limbs. The shredded clothes and the unstaring eyes. He finds Remus and Tonks, holding hands in death. Hermione makes a wounded sound; all Harry can think is, if they hadn’t died Teddy could have grown tall and strong in this kind of love.

But they’re dead. Harry isn’t going to let anyone more die for him. Not in this war, not ever if he can help it. And he can: all he has to do is walk out and meet his death. Harry closes his eyes on an old snitch and sends a quick prayer to whoever can hear it. Sparing no time for goodbyes, he is on his way to Voldemort.

‘I am about to die,’ he whispers and death cloaks him.

The shades that come to meet him are beautiful. Beyond them and their reassurances, Harry hears murmurs. They are soft, inviting, not unlike the songs of the merfolk. It is time. He lets go.

Familiar green light flashes and Harry falls.

 

~*~

 

King Cross is bathed in blinding light.

‘I thought if I came and greeted Death like an old friend, Death would greet me back,’ Harry muses aloud, throwing a glance at the crying bundle on the floor. It was ugly and mutilated: there was no way in heaven and in hell that the creature was something as encompassing as _death_.

And of course, it isn’t. His welcoming committee is quick to point out who, or rather what, the thing is. Harry grimaces; the diary piece of Tom Riddle looked considerably more dashing. Figures that the part he would get stuck in _his_ head would appear to be a disfigured alien baby.

Dumbledore chortles at his expression. ‘You were always a marvelous boy, Harry.’

After a few explanations, Dumbledore ends up giving Harry a choice – it’s the first time in a long time he does so – and Harry ponders. King’s Cross is a crossroad with multiple destinations, but Death only provides him with two possible exits – onwards or backwards. Both directions feel like home. How to tell? His old headmaster is waiting patiently, though there is a twinkle there, like he knows already what Harry will choose.

Harry knows too, despite that it takes him a moment to realize, or maybe to admit. It’s a good thing his family were the one to appear through the stone and Dumbledore to appear in this strange afterlife: if it had been the opposite, Harry thinks it might have been harder to motivate himself to _go._

But obviously death and magic knew what they were doing. Therefore, Harry makes an easy choice: he goes to the only place he can think to go. He goes where he is needed.

As he eases back into his body, something deep and low rumbles. It sounds slightly breathy, like a dry laugh.

 _Soon_ , it says.

 

~*~

 

Hagrid carries his unmoving body back to Hogwarts. Harry, faking his unconsciousness, can hear the chains they’ve put around his friend rattling. The rhythmic rustling sound is faint in the Death Eater’s sea of cheers and cackles, but Harry horns in on it and lets his mind rest.

They do not take the same route he did and yet, as they walk a few meters, he can feel the patch where he dropped the Resurrection Stone. He tries not to let it worry him – not now when a twitch or a frown could be observed, though he knows his face to be half covered by Hagrid’s rough beard. His cloak is also left behind, hidden in the nook of a tree, fourteen meters northwest. The precision of the number surprises him, but he knows it to be true.

It’s not the time to panic, but he can’t help the spike of profound discomfort passing through him.

Distantly, he recognizes the sounds of Nagini hissing and realizes he cannot make a single word out of it.

 

McGonagall’s scream upon hearing of his death almost makes him flinch with how much it reminds him of Amos Diggory’s cries. Sharp and injured and lost: he had thought his friends would cry for him, but he never thought someone would make a sound like _that_ upon his death. Neville soon diverts attention and Harry is thankful for it – the knot in his throat is hard to dissolve when he’s busy playing dead.

 

 

 _Avada Kedavra,_ Voldemort hollers one final time, mythical wand pointed at Harry’s chest.

Just like the first time the Dark Lord tried it sixteen years ago, the curse rebounds. This time, when Voldemort falls, he falls for good. The moment suspends – after believing the Dark Lord dead and seeing him rise after fourteen years and seeing Harry dead only for him to be still alive, the wizards and witches have developed a slightly healthier dose of scepticism. Last time, they were so ready for the war to end they accepted it as soon as they heard a baby had triumphed over their worst nightmare. This time, they are more afraid of false hope, of lowering their guards again. But Ron and Hermione, they know. Harry can see it in the way they stumble into each other, a tad hysterical, but completely alive.

 ‘It’s over,’ he whispers and, finally, the silence breaks. Cheers and cries of relief fill the Great Hall and disperse some of the cloying horror. Then, Harry feels a thrum. He believes it to be the thrum of victory until he notices it has a concrete source: his hand is loosely wrapped around it. He gulps.

The war is over at last. But the Elder Wand in Harry’s fist stirs and tells him what Hermione told him all those years ago in a smoky Divination classroom: the end is but a change, and death is also a beginning.

 

Harry just prays for a moment of rest between this and the next adventure.

 

 

 


End file.
